Speak the Truth in Love, Full of Grace and Hope

Time and time again i realize how difficult it is to tell someone the truth without hurting them. This is especially tough when we genuinely believe that our own opinion is true and we feel the necessity to convey this message of truth to the other person or people, whichever the case may be. But then, there is the issue of whether our own opinions are really true or not. How do we know that what we think is the truth; is the Truth?

Once we are convinced that what we are saying is True, we face the issue of how to communicate this to the other person without hurting them. Having been brought up in a more conservative country, we have learned to say things that make people feel better about themselves, even if it's not the Truth...this is supposed to be more polite. This is of course, a very general statement as different individuals differ in many ways. But if a friend came up to you and asked you if she had put on weight, and in fact she had, how many of us would actually acknowledge the truth? We would prefer not to hurt her feelings, right? The difficulty with a society that does not speak their mind because they hope to maintain a 'peaceful' atmosphere; is that when an individual does speak the Truth, he/she is looked upon as being rude, inconsiderate or just trying to cause trouble.

But then again, there are different methods of 'speaking our mind'. We can do it with the other person's best interest in mind, or we can do it to make ourselves look better or to shoot the other person down. It is important at this point that we stop and examine ourselves to see whether we are actually being constructive, or if we are just causing trouble, in which case, we should probably back off. I myself face this problem quite often. Being sure that we are trying our best to help the other person is very important, otherwise we are presenting our own opinions and views for a very selfish purpose...not good.

Once we know that we are speaking the Truth in love, we should do it with grace and hope. We can do this by having a sense of propriety and consideration for others, by trying to help them be their very best and improve. If we can't be helpful and constructive, then it would probably be better for us to just stay out of the way and not say anything, as we will probably end up just messing things up worse. So, it is important that we speak the Truth for the right reason. I personally do not claim to be a model citizen in this area, but i do know that speaking the Truth is vital, and doing this out of love is even more important although it's NOT easy.

So, speak the truth in love, full of grace and hope......